


To Kiss A Frog

by neko_kirin3104



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fluff and Crack, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neko_kirin3104/pseuds/neko_kirin3104
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino is a swindler, a wily little thug, who one day tries to abduct a princess, but goes home with a frog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Kiss A Frog

 

 _He told her that he had been enchanted by a malicious fairy, who had changed him into the form of a frog, in which he was fated to remain till some princess should take him out of the spring and let him sleep upon her bed for three nights._ **—The Frog Prince** by The Brothers Grimm  _[as translated by Edgar Taylor]_

 

 

∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  
  
Nino doesn’t believe in happily-ever-afters. But he really feels like trying anything with this man won’t be so bad.

Especially since just a few months ago, this man _was_ a frog, who claimed to be a prince cursed by some evil witch, who _didn’t_ turn out to be so evil after all—it depends on who you ask, of course.

Everything would’ve been perfect really, if it weren’t for this king taking Nino’s well-thought out proposal as an insult to the kingdom and banishing the prince—his own son!—to obscurity because of it.

How can a fairy tale end in such a twistedly _un_ -magical way?

“I didn’t really expect that,” Ohno mumbles solemnly as they pass through the castle gates.

“Your father’s a mean beast,” Nino says, nonchalantly kicking a random stone on the dirt road and hardly flinching as the giant double doors close behind them. “I would prefer dealing with ten Matsukos to having a serious conversation with him.”

“If you had waited until after he paid you before you said those silly stuffs you said—”

Nino narrows his eyes at the sleepy-looking prince. “You thought _those_ were silly?!” The constricting pain in his chest feels strange. Maybe he hasn’t really put much thought into this. How can he be so uncharacteristically careless?

Then again, he’s spent a whole fortnight of sleeplessness trying to weave the right words into that cheesy monologue about frogs and kisses and falling in love, in a bid to convince the king that he’s the one for his son—

And all Ohno can say in return is ‘ _those silly stuffs you said’_?!

Perhaps, sincerity doesn’t really suit him.

“Well, I like the sentiment,” Ohno says, his voice soft, almost affectionate, as they shuffle off to nowhere. “But it’s hardly going to feed us in the long run.”

“We can always go back to Matsuko and weasel something out of him—”

“No,” Ohno sharply refused, obviously stifling a traumatizing memory.

“How about we take Shoko and marry him off to a prince who’s stupid enough to believe he’s a woman—?”

“ _I_ was that stupid prince, and it only took an unfortunate trip up his skirt for me to figure it out.”

“Well, not all princes are as sly and perverted as you are,” Nino snorts, desperately stifling his laughter.

“No more Shoko, please?”

Nino sighs. “Well, what do we do then?”

“For now, let’s see how much those stuffs you managed to slip into your coat cost.”

The devious edge in the prince’s voice makes Nino grin. For all his sleepy air and bleary-eyed good looks, nothing much really escapes this man. “I thought you were opposed to me being a weasel?”

“Father owes you for keeping me safe, so I guess that’s fair enough.”

Nino laughs and slips his hand through Ohno’s warm and slender fingers, his eyes unwaveringly fixed on an unknown future.

He will never say it in a million years, but Nino thinks he’s got the best loot anyway.

And he didn’t even have to smuggle Ohno under his coat...

 

 

**_last night..._ **

There’s got to be something about the moon and the stars that he can add to his speech, but the idea eludes him now.

He’s got the sun and the sky and the birds and the sea in there, so he guesses that should be enough. A man can only take so much poetry in a day, anyway. His mentor, Johnny-san, has told him so. And Nino sure doesn’t want the King to overdose on his poetic chops, even though he thinks a prince like Ohno deserves nothing less.

The warm body beside him stirs and mumbles some words that blended soothingly with the crackling bonfire and the chirping night bugs. He wraps his arms around his prince and plants a kiss on his nose.

They have been sleeping in the woods for so long, he wonders if he’ll ever get used to the feel of cushions again.

Tomorrow, he’ll find out.

Tomorrow, he is going to propose to his prince, in front of the King.

And whatever it is he’s always thought he forgot all this time, matters very little to him now.

Because even though he thinks happily-ever-afters suck, with Ohno, he’s willing to take a chance...

 

 

**_a fortnight ago..._ **

Nino marvels at how screwed up things have become at this point.

“I never said it had to be a princess! Ohno-kun must’ve misheard me! I can’t be held responsible for that!”

And to think he has spent weeks preparing for some huge confrontation with this portly onee-witch!

Matsuko leans closer, his jowls trembling with amusement as he looks into Nino eyes. “In fact, you can kiss him now if you want.”

“You mean that’s it?! It’s that simple?! It can be anyone?!”

“Of course it can’t be _just_ anyone!” Matsuko’s voice shook the foundations of his deluxe swamp shack. “But you’ve always known that, haven’t you, Nino?”

“WHA—?!”

“Do it, Nino,” Ohno croaks from the creaky wooden floor. “Do it and let’s get out of here.”

With the witch’s words still ringing in his ears, Nino lets the frog hop onto his palms and raises him close to his face. He can’t believe he’s really doing what he’s about to do and doesn’t even feel disgusted by it.

Has the witch put him in a kind of trance? Because, why does it feel like there’s something he’s missing here? Something he’s supposed to know but just can’t figure out what?

The prince, who obviously doesn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary, has already closed his bulgy eyes in anticipation, in naive faith.

And Nino, for all his scheming genius, can’t even begin to understand why he is giving in, leaning closer, and _kissing a frog_ —

Ohno suddenly lets out a strangled croak before keeling over to the floor with a dull thud.

Nino suddenly forgets how slimy his lips feel as he kneels beside the squirming amphibian, only to reel back instantly with a loud squeak as a purple smoke engulfs the frog prince.

A cacophony of croaks and laughter fills the shack with a stunned Nino in the middle of it all, wide-eyed and gasping and close to peeing in his pants.

When things finally begin to settle down, the witch’s laughter mellows out into an amused _“Ooooh!”_ as the smoke clears, revealing Prince Ohno curled up on the floor, human and glowing in his new skin.

And all Nino can think about as he watches the prince stir, sit up, and look at himself in bewilderment, is how Ohno has turned out to be everything he’s ever expected and so _so_ much more—

Well, Nino has never really imagined the prince _naked_ , but this is good, too...

 

 

**_three months ago..._ **

Nino _really_ feels like there’s something he’s forgetting. It all began when he made that deal with the frog—

“Help me find a _real_ princess, and I’ll make sure my father pays you for your good service.”

And Nino had readily agreed without even blinking an eye. Because, seriously, how hard can it be to find a princess and put himself in a king’s good graces?

But it turns out that not even his natural and time-tested skills can compensate for the seeming shortage in princesses around here that are single, has not been disowned by family for marrying into poverty, and are not _pulling off a_ _Shoko_.

“That cross-dressed prince sure could fool anyone, ne?” he says, making conversation.

He hears a sleepy croak from his pants pocket and sighs. He leans heavily on the tree they have decided to call home for the night and sighs again.

Nino will never deny that the frog prince amuses him, but he’ll never say it out loud either. Nor will he ever admit how easily he has fallen for this crack-story for some reason he has yet to figure out.

But the frog _did_ talk, you see. And it’s not everyday that Nino meets a talking frog who promises him riches beyond his imaginings, if he can just—please, please, PLEASE!—find it a princess to kiss.

The stuff of fairy tales, really.

Nino thinks it’s cute, though. The crackpot tale, not the frog.

“You think I’m cute?” Ohno suddenly says, peering into his eyes from one of his bent knees.

“What? No!” Nino sputters, kicking out his legs and sending the frog leaping to his side.

“You’ve been staring at me like you think I am.”

The cheeky little bastard! “I’m willing you to _vanish_ so I wouldn’t have to worry over your ass every time you fall asleep and fall off my pockets!”

“Yeah?”

Nino feels heat rising to his face and snaps, “Yeah!”

“You cried yesterday when you thought that crocodile ate me—”

“You owe me riches and half of your kingdom! Of course, I’ll cry!”

“I never said half of my kingdom. And it’s not even mine yet...”

“Well, I can always work something out.”

“You’re a strange man, Ninomiya.”

“So says the talking frog!”

Ohno laughs, a croaking trill that sparks a pleasant fluttering in Nino’s heart.

Being with the frog is stirring up something weird inside his gut, but Nino’s too preoccupied with his own laughter to think about that now.

It’s been three months since he made that deal with the frog prince. Three months and still with no _real_ princess in sight, but he doesn’t really feel as frustrated about it as he would have expected.

The frog makes for good company. They have been through a lot, have talked about a lot, and have even laughed and cried through a lot more crap than he is willing to admit.

Nino has even caught himself wondering how the prince would look like once the spell is broken. He’s started dreaming about it, too, but that’s something he would never _ever_ reveal to anyone.

Later, in the quiet of the night, he finds himself wondering why it has to be a princess in the first place...

 

 

 **_half a year ago.._ ** **.**

It takes Nino five minutes of shifting his gaze between a cross-dressed man and a crestfallen frog before he’s finally able to find his voice again and mutter—

“You thought, _this_ was a princess?”

“Well, yeah,” the frog warbles, his eyes cast down in shame.

Nino frowns at the man, who he must admit looks beautiful in a pink dress and long blond wig, but is still undoubtedly a _man_! What with those muscles and broad, sloping shoulders!

“It’s my father’s idea, you see,” Shoko begins to say, nervously wringing his hands. “My sister who’s supposed to marry a prince from some rich kingdom ran away and, well, you see, there’s just me. And our kingdom is collapsing into poverty, so, you see, I have no choice. You see—”

Nino harrumphed to save Shoko the trouble. He doesn’t really see the logic, but he sure can figure out the rest of this sob story. Now, he is more curious about the frog...

The talking frog who has almost made him jump out the window he has just scaled in hopes of kidnapping a princess—!

“I’ve been cursed by a witch who mistook me for a peeping tom. And only the kiss from a princess can bring me back to my old self.”

“Huh?” It occurs to Nino then just how screwed up this whole deal is. There’s no princess here, thus no money!

There’s just a poor prince trying to pass himself up for a princess, and a perverted little frog who obviously got fooled by it.

He cannot believe how far he has fallen from being the best damn swindler on the streets, to this century’s worst thug who can’t even nail his first shot at big-time crime.

Johnny-san will be so annoyed, and the very idea makes the rebellious Nino smile despite everything else.

He has never wanted to leave the streets. It’s bad enough that he’s become a thief, but a kidnapper? No. His mom—god bless her good soul!—will turn over in her grave a dozen times for sure.

And Nino doesn’t want to give his mother anymore discomfort than he already has—

“Don’t kill me, please?” Shoko kneels in front of him, hands clasped together, frightened round eyes wet with tears.

“Wait, what? Kill you? No!” Nino steps back a little, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in his pants. What the hell is wrong with this kingdom?!

He looks at the frog looking at him and screams in his reeling mind, _What the hell is wrong with this WORLD?!_

The frog starts talking again and Nino is forced to pull his wits back together, if only to humor himself with what the amphibian has to say—

“You need money. I need a princess. I have a proposition for you....”

 

 

**_two decades ago..._ **

Nino loves the sound of his mother’s voice whenever she reads to him at night. About magic and cursed princesses and brave knights who tower over evil with their horses and enchanted swords.

Mother says all curses are broken by a kiss that comes true and deep from the heart.

And Nino has more than once wished he can someday be part of such a story, where he would bravely slice up a witch and break a princess’s curse with true love’s kiss.

“It’s that simple, huh?” he mumbles as he closes his eyes.

“Yes, honey,” his mother agrees in a loving whisper as she lays a kiss on his cheek. “It’s that simple.”

And it would all be enough to keep him smiling through the rest of the night.

Because little Nino believes in happily-ever-afters.

With all of his heart.

 

#

 

**Author's Note:**

> written for [ohmiyawedding](http://ohmiyawedding.livejournal.com) 2013.


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